‘Darth Vader’ #30 Review: ‘All Her Shadows’ Starts Strong but Stumbles Over Handmaiden Issues
The 30th issue of the Darth Vader comic run, All Her Shadows, has one of my favorite things in Star Wars — namely, Vader being a badass and throwing people around with the Force. Watching Vader deal with Dormé’s reveal is highly entertaining, with Ochi of Bestoon acting like yet another incompetent lackey desperately trying not to get himself killed by the dark lord in the process.
From there though, things get a little silly and uninspired. Sabé’s storyline on Skako Minor takes a surprising turn as she struggles to save lives whilst serving Darth Vader, but there’s little introspection there. Her storyline is more focused the consequences of her actions and reacting to the plans of the revolutionaries. There’s some fun reveals here, but ultimately I don’t think the next step in that storyline is all that interesting.
The rest of the issue concerns itself with Vader and the rest of the handmaidens. The conflict there is fun, but its conclusion feels rushed so that all the pieces are in place for the next issue. I’m expecting a hell of a fight scene in issue #31, but it’s a shame that certain characters’ motivations feel unearned.
Spoilers ahead…
I had a great time watching Vader throw around Ochi of Bestoon at the beginning of the issue. It’s classic Vader behaviour, more so than the walking tank he tends to become in comics and animation. This is more low key, in line with the way he used the Force in the original trilogy and in Obi-Wan Kenobi: lifting people up in the air, dragging them along the floor, a little Force choke thrown in for good measure. It captured the attitude of a mildly-pissed-off Vader perfectly, which is always a delight to watch and read.
Vader clearly wants to bend the other handmaidens to his will, believing that a squad of them would be extremely useful in his quest for order. However, I find it difficult to believe those handmaidens would set their beliefs aside so easily to ally with him. I guess this is only a temporary deal — they see Vader as a means to an end so they can rescue Sabé, not as a new partnership — but then again, that’s what Sabé herself thought too, and she’s been working for him for a while now.
Perhaps the writing is at fault here. The more I try to rationalize the handmaidens’ decision, the less crazy it sounds, but it’s still difficult to ignore the massive U-turn they perform at the end of the issue. After a big fight with Vader they talk a lot about how they’d never work for him under any circumstances, then they immediately accept his offer to join him and rescue their sister.
For what it’s worth, Vader’s characterization is on point the whole way through. He spends the whole issue testing Dormé and her sisters. When he calls their bluff and they reveal that they are willing to destroy a super star destroyer and kill thousands of people, he decides that they are ready to serve him. He must believe they are in the same place that Sabé was when he convinced her to partner up and that all is going to plan. We’ll see what happens when they track down Sabé in the next issue.
Meanwhile, it’s revealed that Sabé didn’t actually kill Jul Tambor; she merely wounded him. Zed picks both of them up in Jul’s ship and patches up the revolutionary, who reveals that he’s been building an army this entire time. Jul explains that he’s been specifically rebuilding battle droids killed by Vader in the past, analyzing their recorded footage to learn his moves.
Zed is impressed, but I remain unconvinced. One of my other favorite things in Star Wars is when battle droids pop up post-Clone Wars so I was very pleased with the reveal itself, but as Sabé and Zed pointed out earlier, there’s still not much that sets Tambor apart from all the other people who have tried to kill Vader in the past.
Maybe he will be a skilled fighter, but we all know how this is going to turn out. Tambor is not nearly as interesting a character as Sabé is; this arc is far more interested in what will become of her and what decisions she will make, rather than the fate of yet another prideful man who has ambitions of killing Darth Vader.
The Darth Vader comics do have a fun tendency to throw in some twists when we least expect it, but I can’t see any other outcome for Jul Tambor, and it’s not particularly interesting. At least we should get a cool fight between Vader and the handmaidens versus all these droids, though.
Ultimately, Sabé remains the most interesting part of this arc, which is both its strength and its weakness. While Vader was plenty entertaining, Jul Tambor and the rest of the handmaidens remain decidedly less so. Hopefully, that will change soon.
Rating: 6/10
Josh is a huge Star Wars fan, who has spent far too much time wondering if any Star Wars character could defeat Thanos with all the Infinity Stones.
